WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



hundreds are holding up their hands with fin- 

 gers clustered to catch fistfuls of this late cloud- 

 bounty, as do children in the earliest autumn flurry, 

 eager to welcome the coming of sliding and snow- 

 balling. 



Gleaning merrily among these weeds, whose 

 capsules still hold a treasure of seeds, romps a 

 company of sparrows, amicable and industrious. 

 The largest and most conspicuous, of course, are 

 the juncos, whose notes have so metallic a clink 

 that once or twice I am deceived into thinking 

 the distant hammering in a blacksmith's shop is 

 their chatter in a new direction. Their slate- 

 colored coats, buttoned high across the breast over 

 white vests, like old-fashioned dress-suits, look 

 positively black amid the purity of their surround- 

 ings, and they trot about nimbly on top of the 

 snow, dragging their tails so as to leave a well- 

 marked trail. With them are active, chippering 

 field-sparrows, so small and colorless as to be hard 

 to follow in the murk of the storm; a single olive- 

 hued goldfinch, silent and unhappy ; and — phut ! 

 — out from between my feet bursts a song-sparrow, 

 scattering a fleecy spray like a torpedo. I stoop 

 down and probe the hole. It is a well leading to a 

 long tunnel beneath the bent grasses, and arched 



85 



